My attempts to fill out the blank vocabulary with which I was provided created a great deal of merriment. I enjoyed it quite as much as any of them, for nothing could be more amusing than the discussions between the old men in respect to certain doubtful words and phrases. They sometimes quite forgot my presence, and rated each other soundly as ignoramuses; whereat Simon was greatly scandalized, and threatened to put them all in the stocks as “hombres sin verguenza,” men destitute of shame. “Ah!” said he, “these old sinners give me more trouble than the young ones”—a remark which created great mirth amongst the outsiders, and especially amongst the young vagabonds who clung like monkeys to the window bars. The group of swarthy, earnest faces gathered round the little table, upon which was heaped a confused mass of ancient, time-stained papers, would have furnished a study for a painter. It was quite dark when I had concluded my inquiries, but I was not permitted to leave without listening to a little poem, “Una Decima,” written by one of the schoolmasters, who read it to me by the light of a huge wax candle, borrowed, I am sure, from the church for the occasion. My modesty forbids my attempting a translation, and so I compromise matters by submitting the original: DECIMA. Nicaragua, ve hasta cuando Cesara vuestro desvelo, Ya levantara el vuelo Hermoso, alegre, y triunfante; Al mismo tiempo mirando De este personage el porte, Y mas sera cuando corte Todos los agradecimientos: Diremos todos contentos Viva el Gobierno del Norte! D. S. As I mounted my horse, Don Simon led off with three cheers for “El Ministro del Norte,” and followed it with three more for “El Amigo de los Indios” (the friend of the Indians), all of which was afterwards paraded by a dingy little Anglo-servile paper published in Costa Rica, as evidence that I was tampering with the Indians, and exciting them to undertake the utter destruction of the white population!